The home page for the Australian Jewish Historical
Society, (AJHS), which has principal chapters AJHS Inc [NSW] based in Sydney
and AJHS Victoria Inc based in Melbourne, with members in all states and overseas.
The AJHS publishes the Journal of the Australian Jewish Historical Society,
and maintains libraries and archives in Sydney and Melbourne.
This site documents the Jewish experience in Australia,
which began with the arrival of the First Fleet in 1778, and continued with Jewish involvement
in all facets of the subsequent development and evolution of Australia.
Follow the links to notices of meetings and historical tours, and to a timeline, references and sources, photos.

The archives and libraries of the AJHS Inc [NSW] and of AJHS (Vic).
Listings of holdings of original records, microfilms, microfiche, record copies, portraits,
illuminated addresses. Access and Contact details. Fees.

The Beverley Davis Burial Data Collection - the BD-BD - holds the details from the headstones of over
40,000 Jewish graves in Australia and New Zealand, plus Australian War graves overseas and a few others.
This database is fully searchable. A noteable feature is that Hebrew on headstones is converted to roman text. All genealogical information on each headstone is recorded,
including the names of family members who perished in the Holocaust.
Alternate URL is http://ajhs.info/cemetery.

The Australian Jewish Historical Society Journal (AJHSJ) has been published since 1939,
and contains a multitude of articles on the Jewish experience in Australia.
For each completed volume, a comprehensive index was published,
listing articles not only by author(s) and title, but by category of paper,
and also by keyword and reference.
Col Choat has optically scanned the indices from Volume 1, 1939,
to Volume 17 (last issue was in 2004), to produce a comprehensive cumulative index to
the AJHSJ. The large files thereby produced are now online,
while Harvey Cohen has commenced developing programming schemes of searching and accessing this large
amount of data most conveniently.

The books in the AJHS (Vic) Research Library comprise 1035 titles ranging from the classic well-known books
on Australian Jewish History to several rare items. The library is stored at the Makor Library,
305 Hawthorn Road, Caulfield.
The index can be accessed by browisng to the Archives Page of this website, at
www.arc.ajhs.info,
then clicking on the tag to the left entitled Contents & Holdings Victorian Archives

AJHS has in recent years produced invaluable special publications in Australian
Jewish history -- both in book and digital media form. This section of our website gives
full description of available publications, together with pricing and ordering information.

Jewish History from an Australian perspective. Including not just the story of the growth of the Australian and New zealand Jewish
communities, starting with the First Fleet of 1788, but the stories of how and why Jews
came here. In a community that today has more holocaust survivors and their
descendants than any country except
Israel, there are many stories of misery, of escape, difficult passage to reach Australia.
And this is a community which from the earliest days had a special relationship
with Jerusalem and other Jewish towns in the neglected corner of the Ottoman Empire
that was to become Israel. A perspective emissary from Jerusalem in 1861 pointed out
how Jews were free of persecution in Australia, and could reach the highest government positions -
such a different story from Europe.
A
timeline of Australian Jewish History from 1788.
Historic sites, portraits. Stories and folklore. Jewish firsts. Links to other resources.

Australian Jewish Artists: Biographies and online viewing of some of the works
of our leading artists.

The Nulla Nullas
ofWallaga Lake

A background account of how it was that
ANUJSS - the Australian National University Jewish Students Union - established
a children's club at the Wallaga Lake Aboriginal Reserve,
on the far south coast of NSW at about the time of the NSW "Freedom Bus".
The Club - the Nulla Nullas - run during 1964-66 -
had undoubted success, but ended as key ANUJSS members left Canberra in early 1966.
Its noteable that the Nulla Nullas gave charity in (in the form of gifts) to white children (in hospital).
Others both within and outside the Koori community have since contributed to the revitalization
and empowerment
of the Koori village at Wallaga Lake, but traces of ANUJSS's interaction are there still.

The Underground School
ofthe Kovno Ghetto

Kovno, in Lithuanian Kaunas, had a sizeable Jewish community before the Nazi invasion.
Over 90% of the Jewish polulation of Lithuania perished during WWII.
A Ghetto was established within the city,
to contain the Jewish population, and provide slave labour.
Initially basic services were permitted within the Kovno Ghetto, but on 26 August 1942
all schools and synagogues were ordered closed. Earlier,
on 7th May, 1942, the termination of all pregnancies was ordered.
Yet, despite the random shootings, and the murderous beatings, the mass murder,
this story has one glimmer of hope.
An underground school was established within the Ghetto
hidden from the Germans.
This photograph of the Underground School
was used by the Jewish Community Council of Victoria
in flyers for the 2009 Melbourne Yom Hashoa Commemoration Service.
All children in the ghetto were searched for during the "KinderAktion" 27-28th of March 1944.
However the teacher shown in the image to left - survived WWII -- as did -- miraculously -- his daughter
Rona born in hiding in the Ghetto in 1943.
In 1979 Rona came from Lithuania to live in Melbourne, where she is a voluntary guide at the Holocaust Centre.

There has been a very small number of Jews as an ethnic minority in China
for millenia. From the early eighteen hundreds small Jewish
communities became established in the major trading centres of Shanghai and Hong Kong.
As the Nazi menace grew from the late nineteen thiries,
these centres, especially Shanghai, were seen as places of refuge to which many
Jews from Eastern Europe fled. In Shanghai,the Japanese occupation authorities
regarded them as "stateless refugees" and set up a designated
area -- essentially a ghetto -- to restrict their residence and business.
At the end of World War II, many of these Jews emigrated to Australia.

OzzieJewish History Trivia

For those willing to accept the challenge,
a series of questions testing your detailed knowledge
of the most quirky facts of Australian Jewish history.

The History of Now

Contemporary Jewish History
Since the Holocaust

The History Of Now
website is devoted to Contemporary Jewish history,
which is viewed from an international
perspective, but with an Australian bias and emphasis.
By contemporary Jewish history is meant
the history of all Jewish communities post-Holocaust,
with a special interest in the portrayal of Jews and Israel
in the media. Topics covered include
the ongoing programs to delegitimise Israel,
and to obfuscate the Holocaust. This site offers the only available
resource detailing the emerging world-wide phenomena of
Jewish Radio,
with a more detailed discussion of
Jewish Radio in Australia since 1946 including the ongoing story
of the Melbourne Jewish Radio station
Lion FM.
Recent events discussed for their historical significance include
the Baltic States
attempt to cover up the active participation of their nationalists
in the Holocaust via promulgating the
Prague declaration..

The World and Us is a series of one hour radio programs devoted to Contemporary Jewish History.
On the site www.TheRoar.info you will find podcast and streaming access together with
outlines to each episode of the radio program, The World and Us. To repeat first broadcast on Melbourne Jewish Radio,
Lion FM 96.1, on FM radio between September 2011 and June 2011,
but continues to broadcast over the internet at
LionFM.org twice weekly.

If you experience any difficulty in accessing any part of this site, please
send an Email that indicates just the operating system for your PC,
and which web browser you are using to view this site.
Visitors to this website are most welcome to
communicate with
webmaster Dr Harvey Cohen
by Email.